Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Bon Jovi to Jobs: Flobble-de-flee!

Entertainment Weekly reports on Jon Bon Jovi's interview with the London-based Sunday Times Magazine in which he blames Apple founder Steve Jobs for the dismal state of the music industry:

Sounding a bit like an older man protective of his lawn — the quote literally starts with “kids today” — Bon Jovi bemoaned the fact that the young’uns no longer have “the experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album, and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it.”

Yeah, and half the time most of the music on the album was boring, then the record would develop a scratch. But that's the way it was and we liked it!

Posted at 11:31:14 PM

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I think radio gave us a pretty good preview of what a record sounded like,What the music meant to us was more important than how it looked.

Some of the best cuts came off of albums, music that would never make the top 40 pop charts, and the best FM radio stations came about by playing those cuts. You young'uns don't know what you're missing when you buy that single $.99 itune. But, then, music today doesn't contain the richness and variety of the '60s - '80s, IMHO.

Young'uns, I'm old enough to have had exactly the experience Jon Bon Jeriatic described. Buying an album based on a cool cover left me with some pretty bad albums in my room. And the local college or album rock station would only play the one or two good cuts off an album anyway. why, there was even a Billboard chart for "Hot Album Tracks." That was going on long before iTunes came around. In fact, people were making mixtapes and trading ripped songs before then, too. And if JBJ is so worried about the album experience, then why did he put out those flat black things called "singles?"

And yes, I did clamp headphones on and listen to an album while staring at the packaging. Because that was back in they day when they printed lyrics on the inner sleeve. And the only record player in the house was in my parents' living room stereo. Today I have at least 6 devices that play CDs, bought for as low as $20, and have an MP3 player in my pocket that also makes phone calls. You want to talk about the record experience, try hauling a crate full of LPs to warm up a party. Then imagine doing that 30 years earlier with "albums" of 78s. I think about then when I try to decide which 3000 songs to load to an SD chip the size of a postage stamp.

This is why I put up with you, Mike. Though we disagree politically, you're cool with with stuff that counts. By the way, in talking about music from the '60s to the '80s, I do NOT count the disco era in my estimation, sooo uncool.

I remember a Bob Greene column lamenting about these newfangled CDs that allow a listener to actually choose the songs in the order they want played, and even skip some songs altogether. How they missed the experience of knowing that one song reliably followed another. And yes, we did like it that way.

One more note, WDRV 97.1 fm The Drive presents Album Sides Thursday with complete album sides tracked uninterrupted on their original vinyl. Whenever I listen, it takes me back to the monster headphones, midnight music sessions my mother tried to break me of.

Grew up in the 80's hating Bon Jovi, and now I hate em even more. Kids today have it GREAT - sampling music, easy access to everything, buy only what you want. You've gotta be an artist or a record exec to NOT like the state of music.

And by the way Bon Jovi, as soon as some artist today releases an album that is truly an EXPERIENCE in and of itself, and isn't 7 crappy songs surrounding the one hit song you actually spent some time on, then kids will go ahead and buy that album. So don't blame the consumer, blame your peers!

The quote isn't actually honest -- in the interview, Bon Jovi himself said he's going to sound like an old man by what he's about to say. Kind of weird for Entertainment Weekly to take that part out and then say the same thing as an editorial aside, no?

Has for what Jon Bon Jovi has to say, I feel his pain but I disagree with him. It seems kind of strange, but I remember the Slippery When Wet LP in my parent's house, and that my 6 or 7 year old self was insouciantly jamming along to the lyrics. However, now, as opposed to waiting at a record store to get the latest music, I can listen to it on the internet, download it, load it onto my iPod, and be listening to it in my car 10 minutes after it came out. More people are getting access to more music than ever before, and that is a great thing.

On the other hand, there was a certain joy in running down to a record store on Tuesdays to get an eagerly-anticipated release. But the current way is much better for listeners AND artists. Half the acts that are famous now got that way through the internet and social media. It just so happens some of the bigger acts and major record labels feel the pinch, which, if you ask me, is what Jon Bon Jovi is really upset about.

I still prefer to buy whole albums, though, as opposed to a single. That just makes sense.

--I've come to believe that if you think "music was better when I was young," you're just not trying very hard to find good music. Z95 and B96 were the soundtrack to my adolescence, but now I see that 90% of it was (is) fluffy crap. I get so much more... satisfaction? out of music as an adult, when I can discover all the other artists that radio wouldn't touch in the 80s.
That goes for today's music, too. There's so much good stuff out there if you can get beyond Bieber and Gaga, and follow the cyber-paths wherever they lead.

Agree with Dave B. It's a never-ending cycle. I can't stand Taylor Swift, though, as an example, not yet mentioned, of fluff being put out today that is junk. There is some new good stuff out there, too.

Nothing better than going for a run with an mp3 player full of music that's paced perfectly for my turtle speed! No need to change the music until cooling down.

I've discovered musical gems (at least I like them) because I bought a CD for one song, and found others there as a pleasant surprise.

By the way, just the other day Elton John said that Simon Cowell (actually American Idol & XFactor) were the reason the music industry is in that "dismal state".

Me, I would expand MCN's years to include 1963-1968. Maybe because that's when I started listening to my transistor radio (under my pillow at night so Mom couldn't hear) to WLS & WCFL. And now I'm a big fan of DooWop, early Temptations, like that too.

I remember WDAI. THat was a real radio station, along with XRT when it was only on from 5pm to midnight and had the "Artists of the Day", which might pair David Bowie with Stravinsky or Miles Davis. Or WBBM FM, when it was an underground radio station.

Who remembers "Smack dab in the middle of the dial"? Or how about "Triad FM, a voyage through the cosmos"?

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